Second Park Outreach

This afternoon we had our second park outreach in partnership with First Baptist Church Hebron. We meet at Oak Hills Park in Carrollton, TX at the corner of Hebron and Rolling Oaks. Between Bezeugen and FBC Hebron we had a bounce house for the kids, sno cones for all, water, and footballs to toss around. We brought plenty of Gospel tracts and Bibles. We had a number of one on one conversations.

The first guy that I talked too said he was a Christadelphian. Not being familiar with this religion, I asked lots of questions to try to understand what he believes. He basically suggested that there is no hell and that only those who “recognize the truth” will be raised from the dead. So there is essentially no eternal punishment. When his son was done bouncing, I gave him a tract and they left.

I spent a good deal of the time manning the bounce house. We had a few kids. Unfortunately, there were not more people out at the park. Yet, it seems that God had us talk to just the right people that were there. We did have some kids come and play in the bounce house. The wind was a bit of problem. But I was able to pull the front of the bounce house out to keep it upright. While there was a lull between kids, I went into the bounce house and tried it out. Even with the running I’ve been doing lately, I got tired out pretty quickly. While I was in there, I saw a couple of young adults, I’d guess in their 20’s. I waved to them and they came over. The guy, Sanju, asked if he could go in. I said yes. Once he was inside, he called to his sister. Once they were both in the bounce house, I asked, “do you have any spiritual background?” They both claimed to be Christian. Then they expanded and said they were Christian from birth, born in India and now worship at the orthodox church. I continued a dialog asking lots of questions and hearing what they said. They never talked about sin, judgment or hell. I told them that Jesus said that a man “must be born again.” The girl quoted Nicodemus saying “how can a man be born again?” I tried to explain, but they ended up getting distracted and went off to get a sno cone. Since I had kids in the bounce house again, I needed to stay and man it. But I could see that Pastor Ben was now speaking with them. I did get a chance to speak with them again and provided them the entire Law and Gospel message. Pray that they consider it.

In another conversation, after playing catch with a ten year old for awhile, I was talking with him about God’s Law. He recognized that he was a sinner and had lied, stolen and disobeyed mom and dad. This kid was mature beyond his years and said, “can we go sit on the bench and talk about this?” Unfortunately after we went to go to the bench, he got distracted with the sno cones and water, took a bottle of water to his mom and never came back.

Ben and others had a number of good conversations. Several Bibles were handed out. Many tracts went out and many sno cones were enjoyed.

As we were cleaning up, I tossed some plastic bottles in the recycle bin. Looking in, there was one of our “If you’d like to reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ, please dispose of this card” tracts. Although it is sad that someone actually willingly rejected Jesus to put the card there, they did it with full knowledge of what they were doing. You can see the tract next to the Apple Juice bottle label above.

After we had the car loaded up, we were waiting for the bounce house company to come back and pick up the bounce house. While we were waiting, my wife was leaving and she said, “that guy over there has a darwin sticker on the back of his car.” I was speaking with Pastor Ben and debriefing on the event and then went around and picked up some trash. My goal is to leave the park cleaner than when we got there! After throwing out some trash I had picked up, I went over to the guy with the darwin sticker on his car and struck up a conversation. He was an atheist! Duh! He was very angry. Denied there is any God despite the evidence of the creation that we were sitting out in. He demanded a sign from God that he is real. I eventually was able to take him through the Ten Commandments and he admitted to breaking all of the ones I asked him about. About that time, his ten year old daughter came and joined us. Turns out she went to the VBS at our church and had heard the Gospel from me the past two summers! She joined in witnessing to her dad. That was really cool. Anyway, the guy was not concerned and he said he did not believe in hell or God. I explained that it does not matter what he believes, that it only matters what is true. Then a very interesting thing happened. He was sitting there with his netbook trying to do work at the park. I went over and picked it up and said, “what if I say that I believe this is mine, then I should be able to take it and nothing will happen to me.” He objected saying that is wrong and that he would call the police. At that he said, “it does not matter if you don’t believe that it is wrong, you’ll still pay the punishment.” WOW! I asked him to repeat what he said and listen to it this time. He said, “what?” At that his daughter even understood what was happening and she was like “dad listen to what you just said.” He repeated it and I pointed out again that he had just said the same thing I’d been telling him. I reiterated again that if God exists and that hell is real, then by his own admission he would go there.

At that I said, “let me make you an offer. I’ll give you a Bible. You read the book of John and then call me. I’ll buy you dinner and we can sit down and discuss it.”

You know what happened? He agreed to it!

I went to my car and got a Bible. I bookmarked John with my business card and Acts with a Gospel tract. I even gave him a copy of Ray Comfort’s Science Confirms the Bible. His daughter said, “I’ll make sure he reads it.”

This was a very interesting question. I nice balance of Law and Gospel plus some apologetics thrown in. I pray that he will read the book of John and then call me.

Our next “outreach in the park” is planned for July 3rd in The Colony, TX. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for us there.